Tag: drawing

The poet/author Robert Graves has been featured here previously. I wrote about his experiences during the Great War and his inclusion in the memorial to the War Poets in Westminster Abbey. As well as being a fascinating character and a wonderful writer, he also has an excellent face: strong chin, full mouth, penetrating gaze, good bones… and so this week I chose to draw the young poet: Robert Graves.

I recently listened to an audio production of the play: The Half Life of Marie Curie, one of the free listens you get every month with your Audible subscription. [By the way, Audible.com?] Huge fan. I definitely get my money’s worth from my subscription. The play was marvelous and I learned a few things about the famous scientist that I did not know. She had a scandalous affair with another scientist after her husband Pierre died. She carried a vial of radium in her pocket after its discovery and ultimately it led to her death from cancer. In fact, Mme. Curie’s notebooks are so radioactive that at the Bibliotheque Nationale where they reside, they must be stored in lead boxes. To view them, you must wear protective clothing. Besides winning not one but two Nobel Prizes: one in physics, the other in chemistry, she also invented a portable x-ray machine for use by doctors close to the Western Front during World War One. The x-ray machine was fitted into an ambulance and could move with the field hospitals as needed. She also volunteered during the war as an ambulance driver, doing her part for her adopted country, France. Here is my first sketch of 2020: